He had been misquoted, the minister tweeted. ‘My most likely scenario is that the 2019 elections have already been won.’

Union minister Jayant Sinha took to Twitter to deny media reports in which he had been quoted as saying that the “most likely” outcome of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections will be an unstable government.

“My most likely scenario,” he tweeted, “is that the 2019 elections have already been won under the inspiring leadership of the Hon. PM Shri Narendra Modi ji.”

Media is misquoting me from the #CNBCTV18IBLA Countdown To 2019 Lok Sabha Polls. My most likely scenario is that the 2019 elections have already been won under the inspiring leadership of the Hon. PM Shri Narendra Modi ji.https://t.co/unAdvUr4TB

Earlier, PTI had reported Sinha as saying that the country has changed for the better during the tenure of the Narendra Modi government and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s priority is to inform people about it.

“If, indeed, we end up in a situation where we don’t have a strong, stable government, [which] I think that is in fact the most likely case, I think that will be something that will not be good for India going forward,” PTI had reported the minister of state for civil aviation as saying. “For us the goal is to inform, to ensure that people understand all that we have done and all that is at risk consequently.”

Sinha was speaking at the 14th edition of CNBC-TV18’s India Business Leader Awards, titled “Countdown to 2019 Lok Sabha polls”.

Sinha retweeted a number of tweets from CNBC-TV18 News, which quoted him saying positive things about the Indian economy and that “the ruling party has nothing to worry about in the build up to the general elections in 2019 with ‘a great captain’ in PM @narendramodi”.

Sinha said he expects the influence of state-run companies to decrease after the next government comes to power. Last month, the BJP suffered electoral setbacks in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

While the short video clip enclosed by Sinha in his tweet was clearly a different response to a question, this copy will be updated as and when the full video of the conversation reported by PTI is available.